Q: You note that “there is
only one Witch City.” Why did the witch trials in Salem take on such historical
importance?

A: The Salem witch trials led
to the end of Puritanism as a force in early New England. They signaled the
beginning of the transition from Puritan communalism to Yankee independence. At
the end of the witch trials, the government issued a publication ban, to
suppress the growing opposition to the proceedings that had resulted in the
deaths of 25 innocent people.

This ban, which would last
three years, was the first large-scale government cover-up in American history.
Ironically, this action guaranteed that people would never forget the trials.
It also marks the beginning of Americans’ distrust of their government.

Q: In the book, you describe
several factors that gave rise to the witch trials. What was the religious
situation in Salem in 1692, and how did it connect to the other issues leading
to the crisis?

A: The Massachusetts Bay
Colony had been founded in the late 1620s by Puritans who left England to establish
a place of spiritual perfection, where they would live in harmony under the
special covenant they believed they had with God.

However, by the time of the
witch trials, many people believed Puritanism was in serious decline. They feared
the colony was straying from its religious mission, and that residents were
becoming too worldly. Fewer people became church members. The colony also faced
a series of economic, military and political challenges, which were taken as
signs of God’s anger.

So, in 1690 the legislature
(which included most of the future witchcraft judges) passed a law calling for
colony-wide moral reformation, telling people to get back to worship on the
Sabbath and cease their sinful ways. It appeared that God had set Satan loose in
Massachusetts, as a way to test the colony and its faith. So, it was all too easy in 1692 for people to
believe they saw Satan and the witches who were his minions as the source of
their troubles.

Most historians – myself
included – too often focus on the social and cultural aspects of witchcraft,
and overlook the religious aspects of the crime. However, witch hunts almost
always took place in areas feeling religious tensions. You can see this in
Salem by the pattern of accusations. I discovered that five ministers, four
ministers’ wives, and numerous other members of ministers’ families were either
formally accused or informally cried out up on for witchcraft in 1692.

Q: You write, “Indeed, as the
key accusers were girls and young women who lacked legal status, there would
have been no trials unless charges had been pressed by the male heads of the
families of the afflicted.” How did gender roles of the period affect the
events of 1692?

A: Witchcraft is a gendered
crime. In Salem, 76 percent of the people accused of witchcraft were women.
And, since witchcraft was believed to pass through families, many of the men
who were accused were relatives of those women. This figure is pretty much in
line with outbreaks of witchcraft in other times and places. Europe and her
colonies were patriarchal places in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Women were considered the
“weaker vessel” – inferior to men. As such they were believed to be far more
susceptible to Satan’s temptations, including his sexual advances. Given this
atmosphere, many women had such an inferiority complex that when they were
cried out upon for witchcraft, they actually convinced themselves that the
accusation must be right – that they were witches but did not even realize it.

In Salem, 55 people
(mostly women) confessed to witchcraft, implicating not only themselves but
also accusing others. It was through these confessions that the Salem witch
trials quickly grew to be by far the largest witch hunt in American
history.

Q: What are some of the
greatest misperceptions about the Salem witch trials, and what particularly
surprised you as you researched this book?

A: The misperceptions about
Salem are legion. People think the witches were burned at the stake, but in
England and America witchcraft was a civil crime, so the convicted were hanged.

Many of the popular
misunderstandings surround the many theories that attempt to explain the witch
hunt. The afflicted in Salem were not suffering from ergot poisoning. Yes, some
types of ergot poisoning can produce hallucinations, but that type of ergot
will also cause people to die – after their limbs blacken, shrivel and fall
off. Nothing like this is noted in 1692, and most of the afflicted girls led long
lives.

Others believe that people
accused their neighbors of witchcraft to get their real estate. However, in
1692 only the personal possessions of an accused felon could be seized, and
ownership reverted to the colony – not the accusers.

I think I was most surprised
to learn about the ongoing efforts by victims’ families and survivors to have
their innocency restored, and to receive compensation from the colony for
wrongful death and suffering. These families regularly petitioned the government
for more than 50 years after the trials, and the Massachusetts legislature
regularly debated the matter. It was the persistence of these efforts that
helped to insure that the Salem witch trials and its victims would never be
forgotten.

Q: What are you working on
now?

A: I’m trained as an
historical archaeologist as well as an historian, and I’ve spent many years
excavating early colonial sites and studying the objects and daily lives of
early New Englanders. So my next book is going to be a history of the region in
the 17th century, based on its material culture. My dream would be to write a
worthy successor to James Deetz’s 1977 classic In Small Things Forgotten: AnArchaeology of Early American Life.

Q: Anything else
we should know?

A: We owe it to the many victims
who refused to compromise their beliefs to learn their story, for it provides
valuable lessons and an important legacy for us.

Today we find ourselves with
similar problems to those in 1692. Malevolent witches were real then, and
terrorists are all too real now. The goal for both is the complete destruction
our society – of everything we hold dear. How does society protect itself from
a near-invisible threat? Especially when the efforts to defeat that threat
endanger the very beliefs and freedoms we hope to protect?

2 comments:

Interesting interview! I'm puzzling over what Dr. Baker meant by a "civil crime." He can't be referring to the civil law system of continental Europe. And I'm unfamilar with the term in the English/American common law system. Perhaps he means a capital crime? Could you ask him?

In Continental Europe, witchcraft was considered a religious crime, so it was tried by religious courts (sometimes inquisitions). Essentially it was treated as heresy, which is why the guilty were burned at the stake – as heretics. In England and her colonies, Witchcraft was a civil crime – that is a crime against state, not against church. Hence, it was tried by the same system of courts that deal with other criminal offenses.

About Me

Author, THE PRESIDENT AND ME: GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE MAGIC HAT, new children's book (Schiffer, 2016). Co-author, with Marvin Kalb, of HAUNTING LEGACY: VIETNAM AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY FROM FORD TO OBAMA (Brookings Institution Press, 2011).